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Fourteen years of blogging . . . my top 25 posts

I began this personal blog, A Balanced Diet, on 1 February 2012, so I’m now into my 15th year of blogging. I was 63 then; I’m 77 now.

What an interesting pastime it has been. It has certainly kept me busy in retirement, allowing me to combine two of my other hobbies: writing and photography.

It started, somewhat tentatively, with a short story about a visit that Steph and I made during our 2008 annual home leave from the Philippines (where I was working at the International Rice Research Institute or IRRI) to an early 19th century pumping station alongside the Kennet & Avon Canal in Wiltshire.

And on 2 February 2026, I published blog post number 773, about potatoes that turn black.

Quite a contrast of stories. But that’s what my blog has been all about: A potpourri of experiences, reminiscences, and anything that takes my fancy. Personal reminiscences of family, of travel, history, heritage, and music and literature, of working for 40 years in international agricultural research and academia, and commentaries on current affairs. Indeed, anything that took my fancy. But as I’ve always said, I write the blog as much for myself as anyone else.

A complete list of all posts, from most recent to oldest can be found in the Archive.

So what has been my annual output? It has varied considerably over the years, but I’ve now written almost 889,000 words*. Although I have written fewer posts in the past five years, the average length has increased.

The blog has been viewed just under 425,000 times, by 223,000 ‘visitors’. That’s not 223,000 distinct visitors but includes, so I believe, persons who come back to the blog time and again.

So who is reading my blog? It never ceases to surprise me where my blog has been read. Almost every country.

And these are the Top 10 countries, with number of views as of 3 February.

What have all these folks been reading? Here are the 25 posts that have received most views over the past decade and a half (at 3 February), with number of views per post and publication date:

  1. ‘Where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average (10,001) 1 October 2015
    A Prairie Home Companion, a variety show written and presented by raconteur Garrison Keillor was broadcast weekly on Minnesota Public Radio, and included a monologue, News from Lake Wobegon, about a fictional small town in rural Minnesota. During one of our visits to family in the Twin Cities in 2015, Steph and I enjoyed a live broadcast at The Fitzgerald Theater in downtown St Paul.
  2. ‘The bowler is Holding, the batsman’s Willey’ (7671) 13 August 2013
    I enjoy Test Cricket. This post is all about some of the broadcasting bloopers over the years. Enjoy a good laugh.
  3. “There isn’t a tree to hang a man, water to drown a man nor soil to bury a man” (4459) 1 February 2015
    In the summer of 1968, when I was studying environmental botany and geography at the University of Southampton, I attended a botany field course in the west of Ireland in Co. Clare, taking in the magnificent limestone landscape of the Burren.
  4. Potatoes – the real treasure of the Incas (4097) 18 February 2012
    This was my first post about potatoes, and some of the work I undertook at the International Potato Center (CIP) in Peru where I worked for three years between 1973 and 1975 before moving on to Central America in 1976 in another position with CIP.
  5. Please, sir, I want some more (3909) 5 October 2017
    In 2017, I read all the novels of Charles Dickens. This is my account of that very enjoyable literary adventure.
  6. Walking in Hadrian’s footsteps (3637) 8 August 2021
    In October 2020, Steph and I moved to the northeast of England, where there is a plethora of Roman remains, with Hadrian’s Wall being the shining example. This is an account of some of the visits we made during our first year there.
  7. “I’m all for censorship. If ever I see a double entendre, I whip it out.” Kenneth Horne (3318) 14 March 2013
    Beyond Our Ken and Round the Horne were uproariously funny programs on BBC radio in the late 1950s and 1960s. Programs like these wouldn’t be made today.
  8. Leek – Queen of the Moorlands (updated 2018-11-05) (2892) 3 August 2013
    I was born in Congleton, Cheshire, but in April 1956 (aged seven) my family moved to Leek, Staffordshire, some 12 miles away. Since then I’ve always considered this delightful market town on the edge of the Staffordshire moorlands as my home town.
  9. Cockwomble-in-Chief (2336) 9 June 2020
    One of my first posts about the individual who currently occupies the White House in Washington, DC.
  10. The perfect country house . . . a stunning English treasure (2317) 7 August 2017
    Steph and I have visited 164 National Trust properties since joining in 2011. This post describes the visit we made to Belton House in Lincolnshire in 2017. It’s one of the finest houses owned by the National Trust.
  11. Hidcote: an Arts and Crafts-inspired garden (2144) 1 April 2020
    Hidcote Manor in the Cotswolds has one of the most-visited gardens of all National Trust properties. We visited in October 2011.
  12. A knotty dilemma . . . what to wear to an investiture at Buckingham Palace (1986) 4 March 2012
    Once the date for my OBE investiture at Buckingham Palace had been confirmed (29 February 2012), I had to decide whether to wear full morning suit or a lounge suit. Decisions, decisions.
  13. Norman Borlaug – tireless advocate of research for development (1974) 8 March 2012
    Norman Borlaug, a world-renowned wheat breeder, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work to develop high-yielding varieties of wheat that averted famine in the Indian sub-continent.
  14. They’re changing the guard at Buckingham Palace (1802) 1 March 2012
    In November 2011 (on my birthday actually) I received a letter informing me that I had been awarded an OBE. This blog post describes the investiture at Buckingham Palace on 29 February 2012.
  15. An 18th century landscape of temples and statues (1741) 27 November 2014
    Stowe Landscape Gardens. Perhaps one of the finest examples we have of the fashion for ‘natural’ gardening that blossomed in the mid- to late-18th century. 
  16. Little Moreton Hall – an iconic Tudor manor house (1698) 6 September 2013
    This was the first National Trust property I ever visited – in May 1954. It’s located just south of Congleton in Cheshire, where I was born in 1948.
  17. Studying at Southampton, 1967-1970 (updated 20 October 2025) (1364) 10 October 2017
    I spent three of the happiest years of my life at the University of Southampton between October 1967 and July 1970, studying environmental botany and geography. I updated this post at the end of last October after I’d learned of the death of a dear friend from Southampton days.
  18. Are you a picky eater? (1354) 24 August 2022
    This was one of those ‘random’ ideas for a blog post that came to me.
  19. A walk down memory lane . . . literally (1204) 7 September 2013
    After the visit to Little Moreton Hall (number 16 above), we went to Congleton, and explored some of the places where I grew up, including the offices of the local newspaper, The Congleton Chronicle, where my dad had been the staff photographer.
  20. Fashion, so said Louis XIV, is the mirror of history (1194) 8 February 2018
    I wrote this post after watching a BBC TV program, A Stitch in Time (presented by historian and broadcaster Amber Butchart) that really caught my fancy.
  21. The agricultural terraces of Cuyo Cuyo, southern Peru (1156) 13 March 2012
    During the three years I spent in Peru (1973-1975) I had the privilege of traveling extensively over the Andes mountains, including a visit in February 1974 to a remote village in the south of country, Cuyo Cuyo, where farmers were still growing their crops on ancient Inca terraces.
  22. Bromsgrove: my adoptive town . . . but not for too much longer (1103) 19 February 2020
    When I left CIP in 1981 and returned to the UK to join the faculty at The University of Birmingham, Steph and I bought a house in the northeast Worcestershire town of Bromsgrove, about 13 miles south of the university. And although we kept the house empty during the almost 19 years we lived in the Philippines, we moved back to Bromsgrove in May 2010 when I retired. I wrote this blog in early 2020 (just before lockdown) when we had put the house on the market in preparation for a move to the northeast of England.
  23. J Trevor Williams, genetic resources champion, passes away at 76 (1080) 8 April 2015
    Trevor was my dissertation supervisor when I studied for my MSc in genetic resources conservation and use at The university of Birmingham in 1970. Trevor left Birmingham in the late-70s to become the first Director General of the International Board for Plant Genetic Resources (IBPGR) in Rome.
  24. In the footsteps of Mr Darcy (1051) 15 June 2019
    Do you remember the BBC’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (aired in 1995), starring Colin Firth as Mr Darcy. And that swim he took in the lake, emerging with his shirt clinging to his torso, causing females nationwide to swoon. That was filmed at the National Trust’s Lyme Park in Cheshire. 
  25. Farnborough Hall: home of the Holbech family since 1684 (1033) 30 March 2020
    Farnborough Hall is a fine country house in Warwickshire that we visited in 2012.

 

* I have also included >19,000 images (most of them taken by me), 143 short videos (plus links to videos on YouTube, etc.), 66 audio files, and 230 documents.

One regret is not having an app or widget to scan my blog for broken links. So broken links can be encountered throughout unfortunately.